They finished the fast train line 2 years ago. You still can’t ride it

9 comments

1. Shows there’s no capacity, and keeping upgrading lines won’t work, and we actually need HS2.

2. “Scheduling faster services also uses up capacity because it means that trains cannot stop at intermediate stations, and slower trains have to be kept out of the way”
   which is why we need seperate lines for express services

3. We don’t need HS2. We need a slow freight line. A new N/S freight line to add the extra capacity that passenger services need

4. Labour government in now, invest in the railway and the put the profits back into the railway to keep on improving it. No more cost cutting!

5. I have no idea how National Rail can bodge up these projects on an ongoing basis, but they certainly do.

   High speed rail needs in-cab signaling. The UK even signed up to it when we were still part of the EU – and I think they wanted to upgrade all high-speed lines by 2045 or so, and certainly if they finally electrify them.

   But National Rail has not upgraded the signaling on the East Coast Mainline. No idea why, because that is really a rookie error. In cab signaling allows slightly tighter train spacing, and thus would recover the capacity lost due to different speeds. It is also by far the cheapest way to improve line capacity.

   But for some reason, in-cab signalling has been talked about forever, but rarely ever is it implemented in the UK.

6. Tyne and wear metro bought “new” trains 6years ago. They still haven’t run a single one on the track because apparently the line gauge and the wheels are different sizes, so modifications still gotta be made.

7. >The 331-mile journey from London to Edinburgh was to be cut to four hours and five minutes, with the hope that the change would encourage people to stop taking short-haul flights.

   As a regular commuter between Edinburgh and London – it’s not the travel time that stops me from taking the train over a flight, it’s because train travel is so *god damn expensive* even with a railcard.

8. Was this the upgrade that was meant to see ECML trains hitting 140mph instead of 125mph thanks to in-cab signalling? Before you say it, article is unclear…

9. > Scheduling faster services also uses up capacity because it means that trains cannot stop at intermediate stations, and slower trains have to be kept out of the way

   If only there was a project to take a load of express services off the ECML.